Market Square, Kokkola Live Cam

The market square at Kokkola sits between the town hall and the old fish market, on the Gulf of Bothnia coast of Finland. The webcam looks over it from the city hall.

The town was built on tar. Pine tar burned in pits inland was floated down to this coast and shipped to the navies of Europe, and Kokkola was one of the ports that grew rich on it before the trade collapsed with wooden ships.

A British gunboat launch was captured here during the Crimean War, in 1854, when a raiding party was beaten off at the shore; it is still kept in the town as a trophy. Kokkola is bilingual, Finnish and Swedish, and its Swedish name is Karleby.